jmke

Many of us have been severly hit by the slacking economy, and have less money to spend on our computer upgrades. AMD is here to help with thier Athlon II line of CPU's. The Athlon II's have the same great archetexture (K10.5) as their Phenom II counterparts. This means the CPU will be able to process information just as fast as the Phenom II CPUs. The only major difference between the Athlon II and Phenom II lineup is the lack of L3 cahce on the Athlon II CPUs. In the real world this proves to be a small advantage in the Phenom II's favor, but the Athon II is not far behind the Phenom II even with this disadvantage.

Earlier we took a look at the lower end CPUs in the Athlon II series, but today we will take a look at a couple of the more high end CPUs, the X3 440 and X4 635. The 440 checks in at 3 GHz clockspeed, and the 635 comes in at 2.9 GHz. The 440's clock speed actualy comes in higher than the 720 BE, which is a tri core (like the 440) with an unlocked multiplier. While the 720's unlocked multiplier is nice for overclocking, the overall higher clock speed of the 440 will overpower the 720 if used at stock speeds. If you have no plans on overclocking this CPU it would be a smart idea to save some money with the 440 instead of going for the 720.

As for the 635, it comes in faster than the 810 and 925. The 635 should have a pretty sizeable advantage over the 810 since its clock speed is a while 300 MHz faster. However it should end up being pretty close to the 925 because it is clocked only 100 MHz faster. As before, the 635 is a great option for someone who is not interested in overclocking yet wants to have plenty of performance. Though prices have not been announced yet, the 630 costs ~$113 USD, so the 635 should only be around $10-20 USD more putting it below below the 925, and far below the 810.

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=...t_Random=12449

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